These delicious biscuits are perfect for cutting out using your favourite cutters and can be made at Christmas, Halloween or just because. They work well to different flavour additions and bake up in no time.

I used an embossed rolling pin to get a pattern on the dough and then decorated them with royal icing.

This recipe is free from soya, nuts and is vegetarian also 🙂

You can add spices and some raisins to the recipe too for a really nice biscuit that will be full of flavour. Other flavour options listed below

I’ve reduced the sugar quantity but I’ll put in the original amount and you can decide yourself. Also, I left them in the fridge before baking even though the original recipe didn’t state to do this, but I feel that most biscuits, specially gluten free ones, benefit from going into the oven cold.

Ingredients:

100g butter, softened
100g caster sugar (75g in my recipe)
1 egg yolk1/2 a lemon for zest and for juice ** (see note below)
200g gluten free plain flour 1 tsp xanthan gum

Flavour options: 

1/2 tsp mixed spice and 50g raisins
Zest of 1/2 a large orange and 1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping: (optional)

1 egg white
2 tbsp. caster sugar

** Note ** I measured the juice of 1/2 a lemon and it worked out at 1 tbsp.+ 1 tsp

Method:

Place the butter and sugar into a large mixing bowl and beat together until light and fluffy. I like to beat the butter on it’s own first and then add the sugar and beat again.

Add the egg yolk, grated lemon rind and the lemon juice and beat well.

Sieve the flour into the bowl and stir to combine. You can bring it together at the very end with your hands.

Cut it half and roll out the dough on a floured surface to the thickness desired. As it’s a gluten free dough, it can sometimes break easily when rolled so I placed the dough on a floured piece of parchment and rolled it out there. Then I cut out the shapes and removed the excess dough. It was just a matter then of lifting the parchment unto a baking tray without handling the dough too much.

I cut out trees, stars and snowflakes as I was making this for Christmas and used one of my embossed rolling pins to give the biscuits a real festive feel

Place the trays into the fridge for 20 minutes so now you can turn on your oven. It’s 200C or 180C (fan) and Gas 6.

Once the oven is preheated and time is up, put the baking trays in and bake for 10 / 12 minutes. You don’t want the biscuits to brown too much. If you’re using the egg white and caster sugar topping, remove the biscuits from the oven, brush them with the egg white and sprinkle over the caster sugar. Put them back into the oven for a further 2 minutes and then they are ready.

Leave them for a few minutes on the baking tray and then gently remove them to a wire cooling rack and leave till cold.

Decorate as you like and enjoy!

Bake with love

Soraya x